"Don't know. I've never before been party to what amounts to a fraud perpetrated against the government of this great nation. So I don't know how long we'll be surveilled."
"God Kit, I do hope we're not involving you in crisis of conscience, or a moral dilemma from which you may never recover your...your morals."
Kit blew a raspberry. "When any of our politicians can say 'I'm sorry' and explain the difference between a promise, a core promise and an oath that isn't just bad language, then I'll start to worry about whether my actions conflict with what he says my morals should be."
"Katherine O'Malley," Enzo laughed, "You are without question one of my most favourite people."
CHAPTER THREE
Sand palm-tree tidal pool crab, scuttling from a crevice over crimson seaweed swaying in the shallows, not swaying spreading, liquefying blossoming out coating the surface sticky red reaching for incoming surf sounds awesome, threatening, howling yowling Raoul Manuel...
Kit sat bolt upright. Home, kitchen bench, radio, hungry meowing cat. Whoa.
"Thistle, thank you," Kit breathed, "bad dream, that was." She leant over so The Cat could affectionately head butt her cheek. Thistle had other ideas: she bit Kit on the chin.
"You harlot!" Kit swore. "One of these days I'll bite you back."
Thistle turned her back and flicked her tail, allegedly giving serious thought to what she'd do next - after breakfast. She jumped off the bench and waited politely by her bowl.
Kit rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck a few times to remove the kink from having fallen asleep at the breakfast bar, again. She squinted at the kitchen clock: 10:30.
Probably still a.m., she thought. She'd only dozed off for fifteen minutes this time.
"Thistle honey," she said, getting up to feed the feline and finish making her first coffee for the day. "I hope you've been paying attention to how we humans do the phone thing, because if I fall off my stool after nodding off, and end up out cold on the floor," she shook some dry bits into the cat bowl, "then no amount of yowling in my ear for your breakfast will wake me. You'll have to pick up the receiver and shit!" Kit jumped as the phone rang. The second half of the milk she was pouring in Thistle's other bowl missed it completely, so she left the call to her machine while she cleaned up the mess - until she heard Angie's voice.
"Katy, if you're there could you pick up please. I need to speak to you and kinda need your help right now, on account of the fact that Ma Baker and some of her sons are here and..."
"I'm here Angie," Kit said, after snatching up the receiver after running then skidding to a stop in her office.
"Thank the goddess, Katy my love. Did you hear what I said?"
"Sort of," Kit said, "Who is there? And where?"
"I'm at the bar with Julia and Gwen and, ah," she lowered her voice, "a royal Aunt and a couple of her henchmen."
"Queenie Riley is there?" Kit was astonished.
"Yeah. Do you think you could pop on over?"
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"You could bring anyone else who's around," Angie hinted.
"I'll bring reinforcements. Oh, Angie, do not argue with this woman. Make her coffee, answer her questions, do not get smart. See you soon."
Kit hung up and ran into her bedroom where she pulled on her jeans, swapped her shirt for a bra and a fresh T-shirt and grabbed a shoe. She tore back out to the kitchen, threw several newspapers from the bench into the air before she found her wallet, keys, sunglasses and phone, then crawled under her desk for her other shoe.
So, Kit thought as she sat on the floor to put the runners on, Julia is back from her aunt's funeral in Bendigo and Gwen is...Who is Gwen? Ah. Gwen the witch, one of Angie's mostly-silent partners in the bar. But what the hell is Queenie Riley doing at the 'scene of the crime'?
Only one way to find out.
A minute later Kit was, as they say, hauling arse down the inside stairs to her upstairs apartment - oddly-descendible at speed only because, in the case of emergencies, illogical fears can be overridden - and heading towards the second door along the ground floor corridor. The door nearest the bottom of her stairs, was the one to O'Malley Investigations; the other was the entrance to the hub of Del and Brigit's feminist publishing empire.
Kit hoped like hell they were in and not busy.
They were and they weren't, so they leapt to attention when Kit declared, "Angie needs us now. The gangsters have arrived. You lock up, I'll get the car and meet you out front."
The large lawn in front of The Terpsichore had been taken over by a circus: a media circus; a police circus; a circus of protesters, already; and a lesbian support circus bolstered in turn by several drag queens who were probably on their way home from last night.
Kit parked on the opposite side of the road so she, Del and Brigit could swear and shake their heads and wonder how on earth they were going to get through to Angie.
Kit wondered if the Mob inside was as threatening as the mob outside; and voiced her amazement at the number of sightseers given there was nothing to see today, and that the murder had barely rated a mention in The Age - just all over the front page, half of page five, and an in-depth ready-written profile on the whole Riley clan on pages nine and ten.
"Then I imagine these folks are here," Brigit mused, "because of the barely off the verge of sensational coverage by all three commercial TV new programs - all last night."
"Ooh," Kit sneered as if she'd got a whiff of something foul. "I don't think that's good."
"Which part of all this very bad, is not good?" Del asked.
"That cute thirtyish redhead," Kit said. "Her name's Carrie; she was here yesterday."
"What's not good about her?" Del's tone signalled her visual appreciation.
"She's a maybe-baby dyke and she's talking to the press and that can't be good," Kit explained. "She won't have any insight into anything, except maybe how bizarre it is to find a dead man on only your second visit to a women's bar."
"Odds on they'll make her the celebrity then," Brigit foretold, opening the car door. "Come on. I think a bit of barging is in order."
"I knew Brigie's excursions to Mangle's gym would prove useful sooner or later," Kit commented to Del as they all got out.
"Please don't encourage her," Del begged, grabbing hold of Brigit's arm so they could flank Kit, but let her lead them through the throng.
"Yo Kit!" It was Rabbit MacArthur, taking time out from stirring the Straight Virgin Christians, or whoever the protesters were, to draw everyone's attention to their arrival.
"Hey Rabbit, keep up the good fight," Kit called back, as she forged on towards the beleaguered-looking Cathy Martin. Kit nodded hello but waited while the Senior D had finished giving mob-control instructions to a uniformed officer.
"Good morning O'Malley," Cathy sighed, with a smile.
"Bet you didn't think you'd have a carnival to contend with," Kit said.
Cathy pulled a 'seen it all' face. "Murder, especially strange ones, always draws the nutty elements out for a perv." She lifted her chin towards the well-dressed, middle-aged couple standing on the sidelines, holding a sign with a crude sketch of an angel - or a pyramid wearing a frisbee - that promised: 'God loves even the fallen - repent and know'.
"Know what?" Kit asked.
"Beats me," Cathy replied. "But the reporters nearly had your mate for breakfast."
"Is Queenie Riley still here?"
"No," Cathy